Are there other routes for glory as Japan? I can never seem to invade China properly... what else can be done?
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You might try ignoring China and simply focusing on the East Indies and the Pacific war. I don't recommend that, though. I've been on a Japan kick lately and I've found that seizing China (take the total occupation option) while staying at peace for some years to take in all that manpower, and building IC, can turn Japan into a superpower as powerful as the US and USSR by Cold War times.
There's one nasty thing I found out about Japan though. The convoy limit is 800, which makes it very hard to take in all those foreign resources. Throw in the sheer size of the Pacific and all those islands and you also have a hard time dealing with submarines, which makes the convoy situation much worse.
It ends up keeping your IC artificially low, and TC can become a problem because of it.
Even if you take China and are prepared to face the world, you're going to have long term problems due to resources. You need to save up.
This is where the post-China peace comes in (much of which depends on AI aggressiveness settings, mine is normal). It's an opportunity to trade with all sides, trading supplies for lots of every resource. Especially focus on energy!
Ok, now as for beating China in the first place... First listen to the demands of the coup when given the chance. Then setup the minister who gives +10% manpower, you need every ounce you can get. Then try to build 100+ infantry (and even some cavalry) by the time the war starts. You'll need that weight.
The northeastern provinces of China are very similar to Europe, being small and not hard to travel through. The western and southern provinces turn into grinds very easily due to size and terrain problems. What you want to do is encircle and kill off much of the Chinese army in the Northeast, and seize the rest of the nation before it can recover.
Use your navy. Landings on the coast are a great way to setup the encirclements you need to kill them off. Chinese manpower is simply massive, but annihilating a unit means a hit to their IC as they have to rebuild, plus a temporary weakness to an entire section of the line.
Tanks are a horrible idea due to the Chinese terrain. Mountaineers might be ok but are expensive, and you need to crank out an army ASAP. If you do enough damage early on even the mountains won't save China, and mountaineers won't be needed. Cavalry are highly underrated in HOI2 because most people start the war in '39 or later, when tanks start getting good. In the early war with Japan and China you should use cavalry to help surround and destroy.
Ignore the warlords. You might try to take out Communist China to help press south to take Chengdu, but I would only do this after maximizing the damage you do in the East. You do NOT need to get into a war of attrition with the Chinese, you should focus on your superior mobility and navy, attacking from many angles.
There's one nasty thing I found out about Japan though. The convoy limit is 800, which makes it very hard to take in all those foreign resources. Throw in the sheer size of the Pacific and all those islands and you also have a hard time dealing with submarines, which makes the convoy situation much worse.
It ends up keeping your IC artificially low, and TC can become a problem because of it.
Even if you take China and are prepared to face the world, you're going to have long term problems due to resources. You need to save up.This is where the post-China peace comes in (much of which depends on AI aggressiveness settings, mine is normal). It's an opportunity to trade with all sides, trading supplies for lots of every resource. Especially focus on energy!
Ok, now as for beating China in the first place...
First listen to the demands of the coup when given the chance. Then setup the minister who gives +10% manpower, you need every ounce you can get. Then try to build 100+ infantry (and even some cavalry) by the time the war starts. You'll need that weight.The northeastern provinces of China are very similar to Europe, being small and not hard to travel through. The western and southern provinces turn into grinds very easily due to size and terrain problems. What you want to do is encircle and kill off much of the Chinese army in the Northeast, and seize the rest of the nation before it can recover.
Use your navy. Landings on the coast are a great way to setup the encirclements you need to kill them off. Chinese manpower is simply massive, but annihilating a unit means a hit to their IC as they have to rebuild, plus a temporary weakness to an entire section of the line.
Tanks are a horrible idea due to the Chinese terrain. Mountaineers might be ok but are expensive, and you need to crank out an army ASAP. If you do enough damage early on even the mountains won't save China, and mountaineers won't be needed. Cavalry are highly underrated in HOI2 because most people start the war in '39 or later, when tanks start getting good. In the early war with Japan and China you should use cavalry to help surround and destroy.
Ignore the warlords. You might try to take out Communist China to help press south to take Chengdu, but I would only do this after maximizing the damage you do in the East. You do NOT need to get into a war of attrition with the Chinese, you should focus on your superior mobility and navy, attacking from many angles.
Air Force, Hello? When you start getting to provinces where it takes a couple days to retreat have your tacs/cas destroy the retreating units
Convoy limit 800? Since when? I wish that were true sometimes. Especially when the darn ai convoy system takes 1500 of my convoys for metal I don't need.
China is rather easy pickings.
1) Delete all your garrisons.
2) Delete all your level 1 ships. They are near useless anyways.
3) Move all your troops to the part of Northern China you already have.
4) Build some regular inf. Like 3x9.
5) Attack and annex Shanxi.
6) Wait for Nat.China to be at war with the other chinese warlords. This makes Nat.China much easier to take on.
7) Attack China and annex. Remember to encircle and destroy.
1) Delete all your garrisons.
2) Delete all your level 1 ships. They are near useless anyways.
3) Move all your troops to the part of Northern China you already have.
4) Build some regular inf. Like 3x9.
5) Attack and annex Shanxi.
6) Wait for Nat.China to be at war with the other chinese warlords. This makes Nat.China much easier to take on.
7) Attack China and annex. Remember to encircle and destroy.
Horrible advice. You dont disband anything as you can force your puppet to pay the supplies. Basically what I do is I gather up all those garrisons to help in the war and upgrade my camels, and rely on 6 scripted encirclements.
This is with the much harder East is Red Mod with building no new units and no upgrades.
I like to encircled Jining because 1). You release mengachuko 2) those units in hohhot retreat to Jining everytime.
Use shore bombardment to aid you here
I like to attack like this because you're attacking from two sides which means 48 command limit, and its plains. You wanna attack straight to Lianyungang and encircled that quarter circle.
You should actually target hangzhou here not Wengzhou, but you the concept is the same. from here you shangaroo --> gaungzhou for the another encirclement, and last one is Hefi --> Hankou + Shangaroo to chanhou (whatever that province is next to wuchang)
I like to encircled Jining because 1). You release mengachuko 2) those units in hohhot retreat to Jining everytime.
Use shore bombardment to aid you here
I like to attack like this because you're attacking from two sides which means 48 command limit, and its plains. You wanna attack straight to Lianyungang and encircled that quarter circle.
You should actually target hangzhou here not Wengzhou, but you the concept is the same. from here you shangaroo --> gaungzhou for the another encirclement, and last one is Hefi --> Hankou + Shangaroo to chanhou (whatever that province is next to wuchang)
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One thing to remember is that auto-promote should be on, and you need to wait a day so Yamamoto gets his promotion to admiral. Then on day two you throw away the obsolete trash. Keep the battleships though, for shore bombardment purposes.
The garrisons should NOT be removed. They're perfect for anti-partisan duty.
3x9 infantry is not enough men.
Don't wait for anything. China gets out its manpower over time and gets stronger, they need to be defeated quickly.
I could have sworn it was 800, as I've built a stupid amount of convoys at once before, and it seemed to get stuck around that level no matter what. And agreed, I really wish I could tell my convoys to ignore metal and rares, but that's because I ignored trade early on.
Yes, you do start with some decent air power, and it's worth using there, but not enough to make those mountain provinces as good a focus as the Eastern ones. Building additional air power would take too much away from getting out enough infantry divisions to toe the line and move forward. I would only build more air once I've reduced manpower to around 200, making infantry expansion not as valid. Feet on the ground is the most important thing in this war.
I would use tactical bombers because they're much better against the USSR, in the Pacific, and so on. They're too expensive early on, and CAS is too weak later. Air simply isn't an important emphasis in this front.
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Ok, now as for beating China in the first place...
100? I don't know why you need that much but I would much rather use the IC on building CAS and TACs...
I sometimes had trouble with china too, but once you get that out of the way, japan is unstoppable (unless you go to war with the sovs or usa).
got lucky in my current game. GER didnt do Barbarossa. Managed to spend enough money to get the USA to not go to war with me. currently mopping up the british. I own all the American british and french provinces. a nice part of west africa. The french are dead (vichy still neutral). The british only have their home land left. I own all india, persia, and half the middle east. South Africa and Canada are the only allied countries that havent lost territory.
My goal is to take out britain, followed by a war on the SU.
Any reccomendations for this, as they have about 2-3 times the number of units i have, and i have almost all of their border, except europe.
got lucky in my current game. GER didnt do Barbarossa. Managed to spend enough money to get the USA to not go to war with me. currently mopping up the british. I own all the American british and french provinces. a nice part of west africa. The french are dead (vichy still neutral). The british only have their home land left. I own all india, persia, and half the middle east. South Africa and Canada are the only allied countries that havent lost territory.
My goal is to take out britain, followed by a war on the SU.
Any reccomendations for this, as they have about 2-3 times the number of units i have, and i have almost all of their border, except europe.
I've found that beating the USSR is most doable if you attack while Germany is still threatening them. If you're going to attack later, then you might consider using nukes, because even with Chinese manpower (if you keep the peace a while) the USSR simply has too many men. Over too much time they get ridiculous numbers.
3x9 inf is more than enough for me. At least if Nat.China is busy waging war with Sinkiang and Clanxi Quicke (or how its spelled). They will usually go to war with these two right after you have finished taking Shanxi.
Now, when is a good time to invade Shanxi? Before 1937 i assume? Or while when China is at war with Guangxi?
I have generally waited till the event DoW in summer of '37 before any DoWs as Japan.
You can still annex China quickly enough (before war in Europe starts, at least). Just focus on destoying China's army in the central plains, like the others have advised.
BTW, while others have advised against armor, building as little as one division can be handy advantage as the Chinese have abysmal hard attck. So armor can win againt suprising odds.
You can still annex China quickly enough (before war in Europe starts, at least). Just focus on destoying China's army in the central plains, like the others have advised.
BTW, while others have advised against armor, building as little as one division can be handy advantage as the Chinese have abysmal hard attck. So armor can win againt suprising odds.
Just so you know, if you take Shanxi then the Marco Polo event wont fire since it requires Bejing to be free. This means your belligerence will be very high and you face a much stronger US later.
If you want to do it then i suggest you do it 26 feb 1936.